Nige
took up the trombone back in October 1981 after earlier dabbling with other
instruments such as the piano and violin.
His
main musical education and experience were offered by the Clwyd Local Education
Authority’s peripatetic music service and his progress led to playing with the
Clwyd and North Wales Youth Orchestras from March 1984 and April 1986
respectively. He also successfully
auditioned for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales in April 1989 with whom he
played for two seasons for the late Arthur Davison CBE.
Whilst
in his final year at
Despite
this setback, Nige was determined to attend the North Wales Youth Orchestra
course in April 1991, by learning the musical manuscript through whatever means
possible. His friend Mark Lansom (violin/viola/conductor)
and the NWYO’s conductor Malcolm Binney tried several methods of transferring
the music to other media, such as Braille music and magnifying the music by
several times its original size.
Unfortunately Nige found all of these methods impossible and sadly was
forced to pull out of the course.
Nige
then concentrated all his time and effort on revising for his final
examinations, and as a newly blinded student with no Braille or computer
skills, he found it an extremely difficult and arduous task. However with support from the university, the
Royal National Institute of the Blind and of course his many university friends
and his family, Nige successfully achieved his goal and graduated in June 1991
with a BSc (Hons) degree in Mathematics.
Although
Nige left university with a good science degree under his belt, unfortunately
as he had no written communication skills, he was technically unemployable. He
therefore needed to spend 3 months from February 1992 at an RNIB centre in
Torquay. The centre introduced him to
skills such as Braille and word processing, along with helping him become
familiar with the ever-developing access technology available for the
blind. Nige joked, “If there’s a good
time to go blind, it’s now!”. He did not
however appreciate their offer of teaching him skills such as basket weaving.
Nige
had some time on his hands between ending his course at Torquay in April 1992
and commencing an Information Technology City & Guilds course at the RNIB’s
Vocational College in Loughborough in the following October.
It
was at this time when Mark’s late father Andrew (flute), the then conductor of
the WSO, suggested that Nige take part in their next concert in July 1992.
Initially the plan was for Nige to play only in Beethoven’s Symphony No 6
(Pastorale) and he would learn the music from a cassette tape. This cassette was put together by Mark, who sang
the Trombone 2 part over a CD recording of the piece. Mark supported this by providing detailed
explanations of the various passages, clarification of individual notes, tempi,
and general musicality.
Nige
found that he had learned the piece relatively quickly and there was time to
learn something else too. Eventually he
learned the Trombone II parts for the concert’s entire program, including
Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tuti overture.
The
cassette tape method of learning his parts proved to be very successful, and
Mark and Nige continue to use it to this day, including for tonight’s
concerto. Mark and Nige both believe that
this method is in fact a much more musical way of learning than sighted people
playing from a printed part, as by definition, the player is forced to listen
to what is happening musically around them.
Ironically, nobody thought of the cassette tape idea 18 months earlier
in time for the NWYO course.
Nige
usually finds that he can learn a part in a short time, sometimes in as little
as half an hour, depending on the piece, and he has been known to carry two
different orchestral concert programmes in his memory at the same time. For very short pieces, Mark has sent Nige the
information in sound files across the internet instead of recording onto a
cassette tape. This has also proved
successful, and with the ever improving web/pc technology, methods such as this
are more likely to be utilised in the future.
Word
soon got around that Nige, who only months earlier was thinking of selling his
trombone, was now playing in a symphony orchestra once more and he was subsequently
asked back to play with the Clwyd and North Wales Youth Orchestras.
After
completing his IT course at Loughborough, Nige began a student work placement
at Marks & Spencer Financial Services in July 1993 and was offered a permanent
position as a programmer in January 1994.
He continues to work for MSFS however he has progressed to Project
Manager, a role which involves managing the design, build, testing and
subsequent implementation of computer systems and business processes.
In
November 1996, Nige took a change of direction in his musical career and began
playing in Rabbit Foot Walker And The Kings of Rock & Soul, a 6-piece soul
band. Having never played this style of
music before, he initially found it very difficult to understand the structure
of the songs and the blues
chord
structures, however it would only be a matter of time before he could co-write
the brass arrangements.
Nige
continues to play with Rabbit Foot Walker, now an 8-piece band, regularly
playing popular soul/blues classics at local pubs and private functions. (see www.rabbitfootwalker.co.uk for
further details about the band).
Nige
has continued to play regularly with Wrexham Symphony Orchestra since 1992,
attending rehearsals each Wednesday evening, previously with his guide dog,
Isaac, until he complained about the din.
Nige also occasionally plays with the Wrexham-based Cambrian
Philharmonic Orchestra and more diversely, is a member of the brass section
supporting an Elvis Presley tribute act in Merseyside, playing venues such as
the RLPS Summer Pops and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
His
performance of Paul Creston’s “Fantasy for Trombone” with the WSO fulfilled one
of Nige’s musical ambitions. It was his
biggest musical challenge to date and culminated in a very successful
performance.
Another
of Nige’s future musical ambitions is to attend the Canford Summer School For
Music in
As
well as playing trombone, Nige likes to spend his time travelling the world
whenever and wherever possible. In
recent years he has experienced countries such as
July
2003